by Lisa Shea
The men at her side pushed open the main door of the keep, half-carrying, half-dragging her across the dark courtyard. A line of soldiers manned the wall before her, the flames of their torches whipping in the night wind. Her guards moved her up the stairs to the top of the wall, and she stumbled to a halt beside a cloaked figure.
Corwin turned to glare at her, then looked out into the inky expanse beyond the curtain wall. His shout carried on the night winds. “You see? Here she is. Can we finally get on with this? These talks have gone on for quite long enough.”
Elizabeth pressed up against the wall to look beyond its crenellations. To her surprise, flickering torches dotted the landscape, casting pools of light on formations of foot-soldiers, contingents of mounted riders, and even a battering ram. There were a good three hundred soldiers surrounding the keep. And at their front …
“Richard!” Her voice was hoarse with disuse, but it carried clearly into the night.
“Elizabeth!” he shouted, his eyes steady on hers, and she saw the relief and weariness in his face. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
“I am fine, now that you are here,” she called out, drinking in his strength. She saw now that Thomas stood by his side, and James, and countless other men she had sparred with over the years. The men and their forces stretched for as far as she could see.
Her father’s raspy voice came from her other side. “She is fine. So you can all leave now.”
Richard shook his head. His tone brooked no option. “She is my wife. I will not leave without her.”
Her father scoffed, giving a harsh bark. “The chit spread her legs for you for a brief tumble in a stable,” he countered. “If every girl who did that ended up married to the blackguard who bedded her, our land would be populated with bigamists galore.”
Richard’s eyes became steely. “Either you hand over my wife, or we come in and get her ourselves.”
Her father rounded on her, his thin frame tight with fury. “This is all your fault,” he snarled. “If you did not behave like a whore, everything would have been resolved the way I wished.”
Elizabeth’s eyes shone. “I love Richard, and I am his wife,” she shot back. “There is nothing you can do to change that.”
His face filled with fury. “You dare defy me? You worthless slut!” He swung hard at her, his fist aiming for her chin.
Elizabeth reacted by instinct. She dropped down and left, her hands drawing up to protect her face, fully prepared for the flurry of blows she knew would follow.
Her father flailed as his fist whistled through open air. He half-turned, losing his balance, his arms throwing wide. He toppled. She leapt forward, but her hand swiped on empty space as he fell, shrieking, the three stories down toward the earth. His body hit the rocky ground at the base of the wall, and he lay still.
“Father!” she screamed, her eyes pinned on his still form. “Open the gates! Open the gates!”
Corwin grabbed her hard on the arm. “Are you insane?” He swung to look at the guards around him. “Keep those gates shut!”
She pulled herself free, all thoughts of her father. “He could be alive,” she cried, turning to race down the stairs. “Open the gates!”
A flurry of men ran to her side; in a moment the heavy bar had been drawn back and the gates were pulled open. She raced to her father’s side. Richard was there in the same instant; he carefully gathered the limp body up in his arms. Together they moved with him back into the courtyard. Thomas ran alongside to sweep a work table clear of its supplies, and they lay the body gently on its wooden surface.
Elizabeth leaned over his frail form, her heart pounding. “Father? Father?”
At long last his eyelids fluttered open weakly. “Grecia, my dearest sister, is that you?”
Elizabeth blinked in surprise. Her father had not mentioned his sister’s name once in all the years he had raised her. Elizabeth knew of her, of course – how she and his other brothers had died during the brutal raid on the keep.
“No, Father, it is Elizabeth, your daughter,” she gently corrected him.
His focus dimmed. “One must be strong to survive in this keep; one has to be as tough as forged iron to keep it safe.” His gaze came back up to hold Elizabeth’s face. “You have to be sharper than the longest icicle, able to tolerate the pain of a thousand wolf bites to keep the people within safe from harm.”
“I know,” she soothed him. “I will hold the keep.”
His eyes held her for a long moment. “I know you will,” he agreed, his eyes softening for a moment. And then they dimmed, and his breath eased out of his throat.
An arm came gently up around her, and she turned, sobbing, into Richard’s sturdy chest, mourning the loss of a man who had seemed such a force of nature. Now his body lay there, frail, broken, a mere wisp of a man, and he was gone.
At long last she pulled back from Richard, her eyes joining with his, a feeling of awe growing over her. He was her husband. He would stand beside her, support her, and together they could make the keep a place of strength and safety.
There was a rippling movement of bodies around her, and she turned to see the people of the keep slowly lowering themselves to one knee, bowing their heads. She realized that they were acknowledging the couple as the new head of the keep. Thomas and the other supporters nodded their heads to her, their faces both somber and proud.
A sharp cry of outrage blistered through the stillness. “No!” screamed Corwin, looking around in disbelief. “This is not what was supposed to happen! The keep should be mine. Elizabeth should be mine, to do with as I will!”
Richard took a step before Elizabeth, shielding her with his body. “Your plans and schemes are done with, brother,” he informed him, his voice tight. “It is time for you to leave.”
“Leave? Leave my own keep?” cried Corwin in fury. “After all I have gone through to get my hands on this pile of rocks?”
Several of the keep guards took a step toward Corwin. He drew his sword in a flash, sweeping a glittering arc around him to keep them clear.
His voice was harsh. “Did your dear wife tell you what I did to her while she was in that prison? She is tainted now. Your precious honor will not allow you to keep her. I will take her off your hands – go on back to those twins you love babysitting so much.”
Richard’s head turned quickly to Elizabeth, his eyes rich with concern, and she shook her head. He looked back to Corwin, his eyes more serious. “Even if you had assaulted her, it would not change my feelings for her one grain. I love her with all my heart, and I will stand by her as long as I have life left to breathe.”
Corwin raised his sword high over his head. “I can take care of that,” he challenged.
Richard’s hand flashed to the hilt of his sword, and Elizabeth drew in a deep breath, fighting the instinct to interfere with every ounce of her strength. This was Richard’s fight; this was his relationship with his brother. He had stood back, all those times she had wrangled with Corwin as her fiancé. She could see now just much effort it had taken him.
A long moment passed, then Richard spoke. “I will not mar today with further senseless death,” he growled. “You have made your mistakes in life. I again offer you the chance to leave and find a new path for yourself.”
Rage billowed in Corwin’s face as he realized Richard was not going to fight him. He took another step forward, his eyes black pits of shadow. “I killed Launa, our father’s second wife!”
Richard shook his head slightly, and he stared at Corwin with growing focus. “You what?”
Corwin’s face blossomed in satisfaction, and his voice echoed in the courtyard with pride. “Yes, that trollop who managed to lure our father away from our mother. I am the one who cut her down.”
Richard’s gaze held bafflement. “Why in the world would you do that?”
Corwin laughed with delight. “Why did I let her live as long as I did, you mean! It was only because father seemed to care for her, and I di
d not want to bring him any pain. But once he passed on, it was merely a matter of choosing the right circumstances. The imagining of the act was nearly as satisfying as actually plunging the sword into her chest.”
Richard’s voice grew harsh. “She was an innocent woman!”
Corwin’s eyes sharpened. “Innocent? The schemer took our father away from the woman he loved! Then she promptly made a pair of sons to replace us.” He shook his head. “To see her there sitting at our father’s side, sharing his table, sharing his bed! It simply could not be tolerated.”
Awareness brightened Richard’s eyes. “And the left-handed female assassin?”
Corwin grinned. “A touch of genius, if I might say so myself. I could take out two rabbits with one trap. I got rid of the odious interloper, and I also set out a wide net to catch my wayward wife.” He swelled with pride. “You note that I made sure the rumor listed her with ice-blue eyes. I would not want an overenthusiastic lynch mob to slay her before I got my hands on her. But I did need to find her quickly, of course.”
“Of course?”
Corwin’s eyes flicked to the dead body lying on the table, then he glanced around him, as if suddenly remembering they had a large audience hearing this interchange.
Richard’s sword drew out of its sheath in a hiss. “You poisoned Elizabeth’s father?” he ground out.
Corwin stepped forward eagerly, his sword held high, circling Richard. “And what if I did?” he countered. “The old fool was letting everything slip away from him. Someone had to take action.”
The watchers drew back into a ring, giving the men space to move, and Thomas moved up alongside Elizabeth, his stance alert. Her sharp focus was on the two men before her. They were so similar, their eyes the same color, their sword skills clearly the product of similar training. And yet they were so different from one another. Her heart pounded as she thought of Corwin’s willingness to stoop to any foul trickery.
It took every ounce of her self-control to hold in her breath, to step back. She could feel now what Richard had gone through these long weeks, to allow her to deal with Corwin on her own terms. It was his turn now. Corwin was his brother; he had a history with the man which far outweighed her own fractious one. If anyone had a right to take on Corwin and his deceptions, Richard was that man.
Richard circled his brother, his gaze somber. “I still offer you the right to a trial,” he stated, his voice low. “You could have – “
Corwin drew his sword high and down, aiming to cleave Richard’s arm from its socket, and Richard barely dodged back in time, avoiding the swipe, drawing his own sword forward in defense. He dove toward Corwin’s leg, but Corwin leapt back, retreating to safety, and the men were circling again.
Corwin’s voice was harsh. “You always relied on the system,” he snarled. “A system which consigned us to the lowest rungs merely because of the way we were born.”
Corwin lashed out again, the sweep of his sword as quick as an adder’s fangs, and Richard evaded the whistling tip by mere inches.
Richard’s eyes were steady on his brother’s, filled with resignation and regret. “However we were born, we could always choose to act in the most honorable way possible,” he reminded his younger sibling.
“We could take all we had coming,” countered Corwin, dodging in again, and then they were in a maelstrom.
Elizabeth held her breath, barely able to follow the spinning blades, the flashing steel, the hammer-like blows and the twists and turns. The battle seemed to rage for hours; her heart pounded in her chest as if it would escape to join in the war.
Richard was in there, her beloved Richard. If he fell, she had no idea if she could survive.
A cascade of dust, the reverberation of swords, and suddenly the two men stepped apart, staring at each other.
Elizabeth could not breathe. If Richard fell …
But it was Corwin who sighed, who staggered forward, who drew a hand shakily to his chest, and then who plunged toward the earth. Richard was there in an instant, at his side, easing him toward the ground, rolling him over onto his back.
Elizabeth ran to Richard’s side, leaning against him in heartfelt relief. Together they stared down at Corwin, the blood now burbling up out of the wound in his chest as an erupting spring.
Corwin’s eyes were sharp. “I deserved glory,” he ground out. “After all I have gone through, I deserved …”
Richard’s voice was tight. “You deserve peace,” he murmured.
Corwin’s face eased at that, and then his eyes went glassy, and the spark faded from them.
Elizabeth turned to Richard, and his arms drew around her, pulling her close. The courtyard went quiet, with the two corpses lying on either side of them, and finally, for the first time in her life, her home was absolutely silent.
Chapter 23
Two years later
Elizabeth reached her arms out to the tiny, toddling form, her smile warm, the heat of the fire stretching toward them.
“Come on, Jeffrey, you can do it,” she urged, her gaze caught on his moss-green eyes.
The child smiled with delight and eased himself up against the worn stone of the wall. He took one shaky step, then two. Then he was in motion, crossing the short distance across the hearth and falling into his mother’s arms.
Richard’s voice called out with pride from across the hall. “Did you see that! My son! He is walking!”
A cheer sounded around them, and Richard came up to draw them into a warm embrace, kissing her warmly on the cheek, stroking a hand fondly across their son’s head.
Elizabeth returned his kiss, her soul becoming lost in the beauty of her life. Tapestries hung on the walls, decorated with purple columbines and beautiful landscapes. The dreary dirt of her father’s reign had long since been replaced with fresh rushes and polished tables, with fragrant flowers and cascades of candles. Young Jeffrey had blessed their life with his smiling laughter, and she moved a hand to caress the growing bulge at her stomach. Soon, perhaps, a younger sister would be there at his side, to lend warmth and strength to his life.
Thomas stepped into the entryway, his eyes moving fondly to the young child between them. “Malota and young Thomas Junior are taking their nap,” he commented with a smile. “But you might be interested to know that you have visitors.”
Richard glanced up, his hand falling to his hilt.
Thomas shook his head gently. “They seem friendly enough,” he advised his friend. “Foreign, though. I think they are from France.”
Richard gathered up his wife and son, settling them behind the head table. It was a few minutes before there was a movement from the main doors, before a young man and woman came cautiously into the room.
Elizabeth looked over them in interest. They appeared to be in their early twenties, their style of dress clearly not of local wear. They were weary, too, as if they had come quite a distance. Still, they stood resolutely side by side, coming to kneel before her and her husband, then drawing themselves up to their feet.
The woman looked at her with a searching gaze. “You are Elizabeth?”
Elizabeth nodded in curiosity. “I am.”
“I am Framberta,” offered the woman, dropping a curtsy. “And this is Abram.”
Elizabeth waited, her eyes drawing over the young couple.
The woman’s mouth eased into a smile. “I was the daughter of the innkeep at Rennes,” she expanded. “Your brother, Jeffrey, saved my life.”
Elizabeth’s son smiled in delight at hearing his name, reaching his arms out to his father. Elizabeth took in the moss-green eyes, so like her brother’s, and sighed in pleasure. Richard swept the child up in his arms, drawing him close, and Framberta nodded in understanding.
“I was only a child when the attack came,” she continued, “but I am absolutely certain that we all would have died if it had not been for Jeffrey. He had no thought of his own safety. He stood strong, taking on the entire force of the bandits, and he created a wall
between them and my family. It is solely due to his strength that I am here today.”
Abram dropped his eyes, nodding. “God be praised,” he added.
Framberta dropped a hand to her abdomen. “The moment Abram and I wed, I told him that we had to come here. I had to offer my thanks to your family for being here today. If it were not for your brother, I could not have the joy I do. I would not be bearing a son for my husband, and bringing our family to life. It is all due to your brother that I have this happiness.”
Elizabeth’s mouth quirked into a smile. “You know that it will be a son?” She had felt the same certainty that first day she had laid with Richard. She had known beyond any doubt that they had created a son, there in the fragrant hay of the stables, beneath their columbine.
Framberta nodded, a smile on her lips. “It will be a son,” she agreed, “and we will name him Jeffrey.”
Elizabeth opened her arms to the young Frenchwoman. “Then you shall be my sister,” she welcomed, “and you can stay as long as you wish.”
Framberta’s eyes glistened. “I would like to hear more about the man who risked everything to keep me and my family safe,” she murmured, her voice breaking.
She glanced behind her. “Maybe we could just take leave of our traveling companions?”
Elizabeth looked up. Indeed, she hadn’t noticed the other three who had entered the room, so quietly had they moved. There was a young woman with long, brunette hair and two older men, all in dark blue tunics emblazoned with hawks. Each wore a sword at their side.
Framberta smiled. “Let me introduce Lucia and her two guards. They hail from the far north, near the Wall. They were returning from a funeral of a relative and kindly escorted us all this way.”
